With a white Panama hat, dark sunglasses, and a black shirt with white stripes typical of a guayabera, Miguel Díaz-Canel visited tobacco farms in Pinar del Río this Saturday.
The official outlet Periódico Guerrillero shared photographs from the event, which it presented as a working visit prior to the central act for the anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks. Judging by the images, the designated ruler did not touch the ground at any moment and limited himself to listening to explanations and giving directions with his finger pointing to horizons full of utopias.
The outfit, more typical of a tourist at the Tobacco Fair than of an incumbent ruler, did not go unnoticed: while Cuba is experiencing the worst economic crisis in its history, the also First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) posed smiling among tractors, accompanied by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and the Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the PCC, Roberto Morales Ojeda.
The highlight of the tour was the farm of Isabel Cristina Barbosa Díaz, a producer of covered tobacco in the La Ceniza area, in the main municipality of Pinar del Río, whose operation includes drip irrigation plans, photovoltaic panels, and controlled curing houses.
Díaz-Canel, true to his script, did not hold back on his praises: "It is a place where work and prosperity can be felt," he stated in front of the cameras of the state press.
The statement is difficult to digest for those who remember that just four days earlier, the regime definitively canceled the Festival del Habano, the most important luxury event in the Cuban tobacco sector, without setting a new date. This was the second historic cancellation of the festival, following the cancellations in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
The event had been postponed for the first time in February 2026, when it was scheduled to take place between the 23rd and the 27th of that month, citing the energy and fuel crisis. The final cancellation came without the country having resolved any of those issues.
At the forefront of the tobacco sector is Marino Murillo Jorge, the same official who designed the unsuccessful economic reform guidelines and the Tarea Ordenamiento —the monetary reform of 2021 that triggered inflation—, reappointed as president of Tabacuba since November 2021.
Under their management, the sector has accumulated production delays, cuts in payments in freely convertible currency to the tobacco growers, and losses of hundreds of hectares of tobacco due to power outages.
In June 2025, the energy crisis devastated more than 385 hectares of tobacco in Consolación del Sur, with only 1,301 tons harvested out of a planned 1,778 tons.
This Saturday's visit follows a well-documented pattern: since 2022, Díaz-Canel has repeatedly appeared in farms and fields across various provinces, always surrounded by state photographers.
In April 2026, he was criticized for appearing in photos of agricultural work while food was scarce; in November 2025, he posed with a hoe during voluntary work; and in June 2025, it was documented that the municipality of Guáimaro was beautified to hide the real misery prior to his arrival.
Pinar del Río hosts the central event of July 26 for the third time since 1959 — the last time was in 2001 — which the regime presents as a recognition of the province's "fulfillment." The square in Pinar del Río is already ready for the event while the country, as even media sympathetic to the regime acknowledge, "is falling apart."
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